Spanish tuna company Grupo Calvo has overhauled its canned product offering with the launch of a new easy-to-open container that utilizes its Real Peel technology.
According to Calvo, the new cans have four main characteristics: Firstly, it offers an “easy dump,” which allows consumers to extract 100 percent of the product in one piece; it has an easier and safer opening with a flexible aluminum cover; the amount of oil is reduced while maintaining the amount of tuna; and lastly, it offers a juicier end-product.
These features, it said, respond to the growing consumer demand for simplicity, health, and sustainability.
“With this launch we have literally broken the mold with a new way of manufacturing, presenting, and eating canned tuna. But it is much more, the new container ‘Vuelca Fácil’ and the Real Peel technology that makes it possible is Grupo Calvo's most important commitment in the last 20 years to reinvent the category of canned fish,” Grupo Calvo's CEO for Europe Enrique Orge said.
The upgrade follows a four-year, EUR 30 million (USD 36.5 million) investment in the redesign of the company’s manufacturing process at its Carballo (Coruña) plant.
Initially, Vuelca Fácil will be available in the Spanish market, before being progressively rolled-out it to other markets in which the company operates.
“The short-term future involves the launch of the first tuna references with the new packaging and their presentation to our customers. In the medium term, we are working on extending the skills acquired in our plant in Europe to the facilities in America,” Grupo Calvo CEO Mané Calvo said. “We are always looking for opportunities to provide quality, differentiation and novelty. Vuelca Fácil is our latest innovation and I dare say that it is one of the most important in the history of the company.”
Calvo Director of Sustainability and Communication Mariví Sánchez said the new product makes a 35 percent lower contribution to climate change compared to the traditional product, noting that the right dose of oil is one of the main environmental advantages with a reduction of 15 net grams per can, while maintaining the same quantity of tuna.
“We know that three out of four consumers do not add the oil that comes from cans to their plate, and at least 37 percent of them throw it down the drain, therefore it was essential to reduce the oil that was not adding value to the consumer,” Sánchez said.
Vuelca Fácil also complies with the sustainability objectives contained within the company’s Responsible Commitment 2025 plan, by which all the tuna it markets will come from responsible and sustainable fishing by 2025.
With the increase in demand for canned seafood during the pandemic the prospect of sustainable, peel-off end solutions has become more prominently considered. Zurich, Switzerland- and Melbourne, Australia-based packaging company Amcor made a push in December 2020 to promote the adoption of peel-off end solutions in the canned seafood market, citing research showing consumers find them easier and safer to use.
“Changes to the way we shop, cook, and eat have created potential for canned food brands to tap into new audiences and increase purchases among existing consumers,” the company said at the time. “[Yet] across every market, people avoid buying canned foods because they are concerned about the safety and accessibility of opening mechanisms.”
Photo courtesy of Grupo Calvo
